No fighting during morning meetings at Shadow Industries. No bickering and teasing each other throughout the rest of the workday. No pushing her until she couldn’t help but snap at me, because I loved her violent tendencies.
But worse than all that? I no longer got the other side of her—therealher.
My Mallory.
The Mallory who let her walls down and gave me blinding smiles and uninhibited laughs. The Mallory who, after yearsof slowly gaining her trust, shared pieces of her life with me that she hid from everyone else. The Mallory who could be shockingly soft and gentle, so long as it was just the two of us. The Mallory who had always wanted to be right by my side because I was her person, the same as she was mine, even if it hadn’t been in the way I’d wanted...
“Put me outside with Evans,” she muttered without looking up from her tablet, interrupting Briggs from giving us our jobs for that night’s detail.
Even though I’d known it was coming, my body tensed and my heart twisted at her hushed request. Still, I kept my expression neutral while forcing myself not to meet the rest of our team’s curious and accusatory stares. But it was impossible not to feel the growing tension in the conference room as they again wonderedwhyshe kept requesting to be apart from me.
Briggs cleared his throat and said, “No.”
I lifted my gaze in time to see Mallory’s lips twitch with dissatisfaction.
“You’re inside with Gray, or you’re not on this detail at all,” he added resolutely.
Mallory seemed to think for a few seconds before giving the slightest nod.
Stiff. Formal. Withdrawn.
Before, she would’ve fought Briggs on whatever she wanted. She would’ve stared him down, daring him to deny her—even knowing he likely would’ve. Still, this wasn’t her. I knew it. The rest of the team knew it.
I bit back a sigh when I slipped and accidentally met Briggs’ condemning stare.
“Anyone else?” Briggs asked, the question leaving him in a way that warned us not to say anything. When no one attempted to speak, he added, “Good. Meeting over.”
Mallory quickly left the room, the same way she had with every other meeting over the past three months. Even Evans, as sullen as he’d been for the past year, sent me a somewhat sympathetic look before following her out.
I stood but was quickly pushed back into my chair by Rush.
“Yeah, not you,” Briggs muttered as he dropped his tablet on the table and went to stand behind Mallory’s chair, putting him directly across from me and next to Thatch. Folding his arms over his chest, he tipped his chin up. “Now’s when you explain.”
I feigned confusion. “Explain what?”
A smile that was all frustration and bared teeth crossed his face before he leveled me with a glare. “See, I think we’ve all been waiting for the day when you and Monroe would finally just get together.”
Rush grunted an agreement. Thatch didn’t need to—I already knew he felt the same. Then again, he was the only one who knew exactly what Mallory had always meant to me.
“But we’ve also been worried about the fallout of that,” Briggs continued, then gestured to the conference room table before folding his arm again. “We’ve been worried aboutthis. Now, I have a feeling I already know, but what happened?”
I reared back a little at the implication and accusation in his tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Briggs just lifted a brow.
It was Rush who finally broke the silence with a sigh. “You’re not exactly known for staying interested in a girl for long.”
“You’re not known for staying interested in a girl once another crosses your path,” Briggs corrected. “So, what happened? Becausethis”—he once again gestured to the room—“has gone on long enough.”
I glanced at Thatch, only to find him giving me an apologetic look, like he agreed with them, and I think that bothered me the most.
Not that I would’ve ever expected any of them to think I’d hurt Mallory, but Thatch knew me better than to agree with them on this.
I knew how I came across—I knew my personality—but I’d always been that way. Charming women came as naturally to me as breathing. Actively pursuing someone was an entirely different game; one I played much more infrequently than people thought. Even then, it had always,onlybeen in a vain attempt to fill the hollow in my soul caused by the only girl I’d ever loved.
After all, Mallory had made it clear from day one how she felt about me.
I think my favorites over the years were:“If we were the last two people on earth, you’d die lonely,”and“I’ll become an old cat lady before ever considering you.”
